It appears that the first message on a new page isn't visible until there is another one (i.e. this one). Before I write this the last visible message is by Jeff, while there is apparently a later message by gregorypierce which I can't see. Sorry if this post is 'off topic' but hey this is the off topic area!

Why Vim? Textpad does what you want. I avoid everything that even sounds remotely like VI unless I don't have any other choice.

Why Vim? Because I've used it for years and am incredibly adept at doing so. I've not used TextPad much at all, but find it hard to believe that things like regexps are as easily accessed as with Vim - but I'll have to check it out one day. Anyway, whether I'm in Windows or Linux I can use the same text editor, which I find helpful. But, of course, YMMV!

I've used UltraEdit for some time now - it has an awesome array of features!

That's a very nice Win32 text editor indeed. I've used to use it for years, too. However some time ago I kicked it in favour of JEdit and I've to say it's a lovely editor.1) It's Java. Need I say more? ;-) OK, so it runs on our favourite computer and gets faster with any new JVM.2) It's got a very impressive plugin API. You can download many excellent plug-ins from people all around the world. (Very nicely fitted to JEdit: you just click your plugins and it does the rest.) Many plugins are "hot swap-able" now.3) The BeanShell script language is used throughout JEdit and you (can) use it for macros, menu functions, etc etc. really very impressive once you get used to BeanShell (which is pretty easy because it's like lightwight Java)4) It's GPL OpenSource and free.5) SUN ships it with their Java Linux Desktop OS. ;-)6) Probably a lot more I don't remember right now.

There must be a doctoral thesis somewhere being written about thread drift....

BTW: the one thing stopping me from using JEdit is the code completion stuff. Yes, I am a lazy programmer. Yes, I like my dot-completion.I know there was a plugin being worked on, but last time I tried it ..... yerk!

The part I most like is This kind of fecklessness is endemic in open-source land. And it's what's keeping Microsoft in business &#8212; because by Goddess, they may write crappy insecure overpriced shoddy software, but on this one issue their half-assed semi-competent best is an order of magnitude better than we usually manage.

Sometimes I re-format and re-install just to get a particular program or system installed, because the installation routine is so incomprehensibly difficult, and usually the distro installer will have a single checkbox for it.

You have no idea what it's done, the distro installer normally puts the config in non-standard places, and it's usually a fork of the normal version so that you'll never be able to upgrade it, but...at least it installed.

Bearing in mind that the reformat takes at least a day (mainly fixing up all the things the installer has screwed up, re-installing lots of things by hand) it should be obvious how much time I've spent failing to install individual packages (sometimes more than a week for a single app!)

A nice article. Probably more of these should be written to improve the situation. A point of critique: Raymond shouldn't generalize too much.

Btw. which printer configuration tool did Raymond use? He should have written this (sorry if I didn't find it), because I'd like to know what he is talking about.

Probably the first question of a configuration tool should be to ask about the user's skill level (for instance "easy printing wizard" and "expert printer configuration"). It's good if new users can accomplish simple tasks, but more complex configuration options shouldn't be hidden from expert users. Context sensitive help is also an important point.

There may be SOME kind of market emerging for Linux games thansk, justa touch ironically, to Sun.

We've recently made deals with governments to put a ton of JDS stations in various other couintries. In some cases these are public access stations. So while I mstill nto sure there is a packaged product market in some of these countries due to long standing piracy-histories and or the public acccess nature of computer resources, there MAY be a market building there for online services.

Got a question about Java and game programming? Just new to the Java Game Development Community? Try my FAQ. Its likely you'll learn something!

If you just have some additional options an "advanced" button is better. If you have two completely different configuration possibilities (not always necessary) you need more than an "advanced" button. Maybe expert is not a good word (valuing the user), so you could for example call it "configuration wizard" and "manual configuration". The first one asks simple questions and covers the most likely configurations (step by step) and the latter one is more or less only a layer above a text configuration file.

There may be SOME kind of market emerging for Linux games thansk, justa touch ironically, to Sun.

We've recently made deals with governments to put a ton of JDS

Slaps forehead; Doh! Of course...What happens each time hundreds of thousands of civil-servants / govt workers switch to linux? Lots and lots and lots more people tyring to play games, of course...what else do they have to occupy them all day ?

If you just have some additional options an "advanced" button is better. If you have two completely different configuration possibilities (not always necessary) you need more than an "advanced" button. Maybe expert is not a good word (valuing the user), so you could for example call it "configuration wizard" and "manual configuration". The first one asks simple questions and covers the most likely configurations (step by step) and the latter one is more or less only a layer above a text configuration file.

You seem to have missed the entire point of the rant. The user in question IS an expert. And what he was running was a 'configuration wizard' (the alternative is to edit a bunch of even more cryptic text files). the point was that (most) so-called wizards on Linux systems are so bad that they baffle computer experts.

If you try to please all of the people all of the time you'll fail, plain and simple. One of the golden rules of marketing is that you have to make sure you exclude people from your market or you'll lose focus and produce something that satisfies no-one.

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